CompileWithMSYS

This is the updated instruction for building Stellarium from version 0.11.4. using the MSYS system with Qt 4.8.2/MinGW. See also the Windows_Build_Instructions for the QtCreator method which you may find easier.

Installation of development tools & libraries

Building with MinGW32

With the change in compiling to use Qt 4.8.2 compiling Stellarium has now been made considerably easier and can be built successfully in Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7 (32 bit and 64 bit) although it must be run in 32 bit mode on 64 bit operating systems. A version for 64bit compiling will available later

Note: Windows 7 (64bit). When using MSYS Windows 7 does not respond to *.bat files. Change the .bat to .cmd. In addition file names that start with "." eg .bzr cannot be renamed. The install programs seem to be able to write these files however. Windows 7 may need administrator privileges to write some files

The need for separate installations of most of the older dependancies like Dev-Cpp, MinGW, GNUWin32 etc is no longer needed.

To get started you will need to download Qt 4.8.2 for installation after MinGW is compiled

It is at the top of the page. Run mingw-get-inst-20120426.exe (662.7kB) and it will install MinGW with GCC 4.6, libiconv, Gettext-0.18.1.1-2 and libintl-0.18.1.1-2 in the correct order. This is quite a large down load and requires some additions to the starting menu.

In the select components menu
MinGW compile suite and the C compiler are already ticked.
Add ticks to C++ compiler and the last item MinGW Developer tool kit.

MinGW needs to be installed before any other dependencies as it location must be known by Qt and Msys

It may not install correctly if anything upsets the install procedure. I had four goes before I got it right. Check the \MinGW\Bin folder and make sure that MSgfmt.exe, libgettextlib-0-18-1.dll and libgettextsrc-0-18-1.dll are there. Check \MinGW\include for libintl.h and zlib.h are there. This should be enough to assure that it has installed correctly.

Next run

Qt libraries 4.8.2 for Windows (MinGW 4.4, 318 MB)

and install it in \Qt\4.8.2\Qt to conform to previous editions. Indicate the location of MinGW when asked.

Note: Qt 4.8.2 installation will emit a warning that only MinGW w32api.h version 3.13 is supported. Our new version is 3.17 (newer), and you can safely ignore the warning and continue.

TortoiseSVN-1.7.7.22907-win32-svn-1.7.5.msi (or the current version) into Windows (http://tortoiseSVN.net/downloads). If you have Windows 7 64 bit don't forget to get and install the 64 bit version TortoiseSVN-1.7.7.22907-x64-svn-1.7.5.msi.(or the current version) Next install bazaar from http://wiki.bazaar.canonical.com/Download During installation tick the bzr shell extension. NOTE: there may be a later versions. (if you want to build the latest development version)

As of build #5572 you will need the updated version of Glext.h from the OpenGL site
http://www.opengl.org/registry/api/glext.h and install it in Mingw\include\gl inlieu of the existing version. Note: This may not be necessary with later builds

Configuring the MSYS environment

You need to set some environment variables in the MSYS environment. Start MSYS and enter the following commands.

If you installed packages listed above in non-standard locations (or with different versions which are expressed in the path to the files), you'll need to modify this command appropriately:

When Building with Qt the following paths are best added to the "Path" of the environment variables of your operating system manually. Control panel – System – advanced – environment variables. (use your system drive for "C:")

Note: to avoid secondary paths to older versions of the dependencies it is safer to remove the paths from the environment variables that call "dev-cpp" and \program files\gnuwin32

Getting the source code

Release versions

You can download the source code for the release versions from the sourceforge download area. Save the file to the /home/YOURUSERNAME directory within MSYS (typically this is C:\msys\1.0\home\YOURUSERNAME\ within the Windows filesystem). The file name should be stellarium-0.11.3.tar.gz or similar.

You will need a decompression program installed in Windows. I use a free program "Jzip" which seems to handle all the current compression algorithms.

De-compress the tar file like this:

tar zxvf stellarium-0.11.3.tar.gz

The root of the source tree will be will be /home/YOURUSERNAME/stellarium for simplicity.

Development versions from the Bazaar repository

You can try the latest development code by downloading from the bzr repositry using the TortoiseSVN client bzr shell. This program integrates with the Windows file browser. See the TortoiseSVN website for details. Check out the source by entering the folder where you have the stellarium source code and from the Windows menu bar:

The root of the source tree typically will be /MSYS/1.0/home/YOURUSERNAME/stellarium.

You will first need to get the source code. Open MSYS to see the command line and enter:

cd /c/msys/1.0/home/YOURNAME

then

bzr co lp:stellarium

This will download the trunk into .bzr (nearly 1GB at the moment), a hidden folder in the stellarium folder, so it may take some time. When this completes the trunk source code will be written into your stellarium folder.

When the source code is loaded into your stellarium folder you can add any updates from the Windows pull down menu.
Note: in Windows 7 the menu will appear if you right click the mouse in a vacant area of the stellarium folder.

Files - TortoiseBZR - update. The default will be the working tree then press enter

Check out to the /home/YOURUSERNAME directory within MSYS (typically this is C:\msys\1.0\home\YOURUSERNAME\ within the Windows filesystem).

Building

Open an MSYS console, and change directory into the root of the source tree, e.g.

There will be quite a few warnings. These can usually be ignored. You will see a message, "BUILD WORKED" or "BUILD FAILED" telling you if it was successful.

run make install

make install

This will place all the compiled files in program files\stellarium. From where they will be found when you run the installer program stellariun.iss after you install the Inno Setup Compiler

Doing a test run

If the build was successful, you can run the program without installing it, just to test everything is OK. First you need to find all the DLLs which Stellarium uses, and copy them to the root of the source tree:

Making the installer

If you have followed the above procedure the current build from bzr source will generate the necessary stellarium.iss file. Double click on it, then from the menu bar "build-compile". It will build the stellarium installer package and place it in a folder of the stellarium source tree root folder "installers"

Run the program generated and Stellarium will be installed in program files\stellarium or wherever you select with an option to place an icon on the desktop if desired.

NOTES:

Note 1: If the compile fails with the error "can't find a particular file". Check the cmakecache.txt file in the ...\build\msys folder and make sure the variable/path/file is directed to the correct source.

Note 2: Stellarium is compiled to specifically use OpenGl2 for enhanced video. If your video card does not have OpenGl2 compatable drivers you can force OpenGL1 by placing
use_qpaintenginegl2 = false in the [main] section of the config.ini file